


A Fantastic Tale

by RedBlueRoses



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Adventure, Age of Sail, Friendship, Humour, Other, Romance, Whaling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-02-04 11:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12769884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBlueRoses/pseuds/RedBlueRoses
Summary: During his commission to the Baltics, Horatio meets the person he thought he had lost forever...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The story is set after the events of the TV series and during the book 'The Commodore'. I tried to imagine a scenario that perhaps might have happened if the TV series had been continued...
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> The first chapter is a rewrite (and shortened) version of chapter 5 of 'The Commodore'.

     „I‘ll put the pistols in this locker, sir,“ said Brown, completing the unpacking.

     „Pistols?“ said Horatio.

     Brown brought the case over to him; he had only mentioned them because he knew that Horatio was not aware of the pistols‘ existence. It was a beautiful mahogany case, velvet-lined; the first thing to catch the eye inside was a white card. It bore some words in Barbara‘s handwriting - ‚To my dear husband. May he never need to use them, but if he must then may they serve him well, and at least may they remind him of his loving wife, who will pray every day for his safety, for his happiness, and for his success.‘ Horatio read the words twice before he put the card down to examine the pistols. They were beautiful weapons, of bright steel inlaid with silver, double-barrelled, the butts of ebony, giving them perfect balance in the hand. There were two copper tubes in the case to open next; they merely contained pistol bullets, each one cast flawlessly, a perfect sphere. The fact that the makers had gone to the trouble of casting special bullets and including themin the case recalled Horatio‘s attention to the pistols. Inside the barrels were bright spiral lanes; they were rifled pistols, then. The next copper box in the case contained a number of discs of thin leather impregnated with oil; these would be for wrapping up the bullet before inserting it into the barrel, so as to ensure a perfect fit. The brass rod and the little brass mallet would be for hammering the bullets home. The little brass cup must be a measure of the powder charge. It was small, but that was the way to ensure accuracy – a small powder charge, a heavy ball, and a true barrel. With these pistols he could rely on himself to hit a small bull‘s-eye at fifty yards, as long as he held true.

     But there was one more copper box to open. It was full of little square bits of copper sheet, very thin indeed. He was puzzled at the sight of them; each bit of copper had a bulge in the centre, where the metal was especially thin, making the black contents just visible through it. It dawned slowly upon Horatio that these must be the percussion caps he had heard vaguely about recently. To prove it he laid one on his desk and tapped it sharply with the brass mallet. There was a sharp crack, a puff of smoke from under the mallet, and when he lifted up the latter he could see that the cap was rent open, and the desk was marked with the strain of the explosion.

     He looked at the pistols again. He must have been blind, not to have noticed the absence of flint and priming pan. The hammer rested on what appeared at first sight to be a simple block of metal, but this pivoted at a touch, revealing a shallow cavity below it clearly intended to receive a cap. At the base of the cavity was a small hole which must communicate with the breech end of the barrel. Put a charge in the pistol, put a cap in the cavity, and fix it firm with the metal block. Now snap the hammer down upon the block. The cap explodes; the flame passes through the hole into the charge and the pistol is fired. No haphazard arrangement of flint and priming: rain or spray could never put these pistols out of action. Horatio guessed there would not be a misfire once in a hundred shots. It was a wonderful present – it was very thoughtful indeed of Barbara to buy them for him, Heaven only knew what they must have cost; some skilled workman must have laboured for months over the rifling of those four barrels, and the copper caps – five hundred of them, every one hand-made – must have cost a pretty penny of themselves. But with those two pistols loaded he would have four men‘s lives in his hands; on a fine day with two flint-lock double-barrelled pistols he would expect one misfire, if not two, and if it were raining or there was spray flying it would be remarkable if he could fire a single shot. To Horatio‘s mind the rifling was not as important as the percussion caps; in the usual ship-board scuffle when pistols were likely to be used accuracy was not important, for one generally pressed the muzzle against one‘s adversary‘s stomach before pulling the trigger.

     Horatio laid the pistols in their velvet nests and mused on. Dear Barbara. She was always thinking of him, trying to anticipate his wants, but something more than that as well. These pistols were an example of the way she tried to satisfy wants of his that he was not aware of.

     Barbara had lifted her eyebrows when her husband had said that Gibbon would be all the reading material he would need on this commission, and she had bought and packed a score of other books for him. Horatio now turned to the rest of his luggage, taking one of them in his hands; it was this short story anthology _Fantastic Tales of the Sea_ by an American author called William Scott that had been published a few years ago. It was the first book by this writer, and two others had also come out since then. The stories were about – well, just what the book title said. He knew that much about it because the books had become rather popular with the public. The people Horatio now circulated with considered it rather low literature, and so, partially for appearances, he did too, although he was rather curious about it, being about the sea and all; Barbara could tell that, and that he needed some lighter reading every now and then to distract him from his duty. He must admit he was glad of the chance to read it, although he would never have dreamed of buying it for himself. Horatio looked back over a life of Spartan self-denial with a twinge of queer regret that it should have ended, and then he got angrily out of his chair. In another moment he would be wishing he were not married to Barbara, and that was perfect nonsense.

     He put the anthology on the desk and let his gaze wander over the other books among his packed things, until it found a small bag with a very special book in it. A book that Horatio would always carry with him on his commissions. He had told Barbara about Archie eventually, with a huge lump in his throat and his heart still so clenched, even afters all the time since the events in Kingston; so she had thought about this book, too…

     Horatio shook himself out of his reverie, reminding himself where he was and that he had go on. He could tell, down here in his cabin, that the Nonsuch was still close-hauled to the strong northwesterly breeze; she was lying over to it so steadily that there was little roll in her motion, although she was pitching deeply as she met the short North Sea rollers. The tell-tale compass over his head showed that she was making good her course for the Skaw; and the whole cabin was resonant with the harping of the taut rigging transmitted through the timbers of the ship, while she creaked positively thunderously as she pitched, loud enough to make conversation difficult. There was one frame that made a noise like a pistol shot at one particular moment of each pitch, and he had already grown so used to the sound as to be able to anticipate it exactly, judging it by the ship‘s motion.

     He had been puzzled for a space by a peculiar irregular thud over his head; in fact, he had been so piqued at his inability to account for it that he had put on his hat and gone up on the quarter-deck to find out. There was nothing in sight on the deck which seemed likely to have made that rhythmical noise, no pump at work, nobody beating out oakum – even if it were conceivable that such a thing could be done on the quarter-deck of a ship of the line; there were only William and the officers of the watch, who immediately froze into inconspicuous immobility when the great man appeared on the companion. Heaven only knew what made that thumping; Horatio began to wonder if his ears had deceived him and if the noise really came from a deck below. He had to make a pretence of having come on deck for a purpose – interesting to find that even a Commodore, First Class, still had to sink to such subterfuges – and he began to stride up and down the weather side of the quarter-deck, hands behind him, head bowed forward, in the old comfortable attitude. Enthusiasts had talked or written of pleasures innumerable, of gardens or women, wine or fishing; it was strange that no one had ever told of the pleasure of walking a quarter-deck.

     But what was it that had made that slow thumping noise? He was forgetting why he had come upon deck. He darted covert glances from under his brows as he walked up and down and still saw nothing to account for it. The noise had not been audible since he came on deck, but still curiosity consumed him. He stood by the taffrail and looked back at the flotilla. The trim ship-rigged sloops were beating up against the strong breeze without difficulty, but the bomb-ketches were not so comfortable. The absence of a foremast, the huge triangular foresail, made it hard to keep them from yawing, even in a wind. Every now and then they would put their stumpy bowsprits down and take the green sea in over their bows.

     He was not interested in bomb-ketches. He wanted to know what had been thumping the deck over his head when he was in his cabin, and then common sense came to help him fight down his ridiculous self-consciousness. Why should not a Commodore ask a simple question about a simple subject? Why in the world had he even hesitated for a moment? He swung round with determination.

     „Captain Bush?“ he called.

     „Sir!“ William came hastening aft to him, his wooden leg thumping on deck.

     That was the noise! With every second step William took, his wooden leg with its leather button came down with a thump on the planking. Horatio certainly could not ask the question he had just been forming in his mind.

     „I hope I shall have the pleasure of your company at dinner this evening,“ said Horatio, thinking rapidly.

     „Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, indeed,“ said William. He beamed with pleasure at the invitation so that Horatio felt positively hypocritical as he made his way down into the cabin to supervise the last of his unpacking. Yet it was as well that he had been led by his own peculiar weaknesses to give that invitation instead of spending the evening, as he would otherwise have done, dreaming about Barbara, calling up in his mind the lovely drive through springtime England from Smallbridge to Deal, and making himself as miserable at sea as he had managed to make himself on land.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this chapter is a rewrite of the paragraph where chapter 5 of The Commodore continues. After that, it my own story, so wish me luck ;) .

Inviting William to dinner wasn‘t a bad idea in the end, of course. He was able to tell Horatio about the officers and men of the Nonsuch, who could be trusted and who must be watched, what was the material condition of the ship, if the stores were good or bad, and all the hundred other things he needed to know. And tomorrow, as soon as the weather moderated, Horatio would signal for ‚All Captains‘, and so make the acquaintance of his other subordinates, and size them up, and perhaps begin to convey to them his own particular viewpoints and theories, so that when the time came for action there would be need for few signals and there would be common action directed speedily at a common objective.

Horatio stood up from the table after the dinner and went to his luggage. „Would you like to have a cigar? I haven‘t had one in a long time, and it fits after such a fine meal Brown made for us.“ He took the box out of the other things Barbara had packed for him. She really had thought of everything.

„Yes, why not...“ said William hesitantly. He, too, got up from the dinner table and cautiously stalked to Horatio‘s desk, his wooden leg thumping on the deck. Before the dinner, he had spotted a peculiar book on his commodore‘s desk. Only after the meal he felt secure enough to look after it; William sometimes had difficulties to know if he was now with his superior Hornblower or his friend Horatio.

William took the book in his hand, lifting it to read its cover title. „Fantastic Stories Of The Sea? You read this?“ he inquired, with a slight look of astonishment on his face.

„Oh,“ answered Horatio, blushing a bit. „My wife gave it to me. She had put it into my luggage without telling me, and when I found it earlier while taking care of my things, I apparently forgot it on my desk. I‘m not sure if I should really read it, stories from the sea with phantasms and beasts… As if there aren‘t enough terrifying things happening at sea...“ Maybe it was better not to show too much interest in a book that was clearly below his rank as a commodore and gentleman, especially in front of another navy officer.

„Not all of the stories have evil beasts in them or end badly,“ William protested, admitting more than he wanted. Horatio cocked his eyebrow.

William cleared his throat. „Well… I‘ve read it when I was at my sisters once, out of boredom. At first, I was thinking like you, but then my sisters told me that the author is a sea captain, too. I was surprised how accurate he described a ship, or how a crew works… The fantastic elements are probably just there to attract a wider readership.“

„Hmm… that reminds me of something,“ Horatio said, abandoning the box with the cigars on his desk. He turned back to his luggage, and fished out the little bag that was so special to him… „I want to show you something, William!“ he said excitedly, and it seemed to William that his friend looked like the young man he used to be when Archie Kennedy was still around...

Walking towards his friend, Horatio opened the book from the bag – a black ribbon and a brass button fell out of it; the ribbon was a usual one with which one could tie his queue, and the button was adorned with an anchor.. Even before these two small things reached the deck, William knew immediately to whom they belonged.

Horatio kneeled down to pick up the button and the ribbon. „These are Archie Kennedy‘s things,“ he said, unnecessarily. 

„Yes… I thought as much, somehow...“ William felt paralyzed with all the memories about Archie washing all over him and couldn‘t kneel like Horatio, or else he would have picked them up.

„I managed to get a hold of his beloved Shakespeare book, this ribbon and button, before… Well, before I was made commander of the Retribution…“. Horatio swallowed. „I kept them so that they would remind me whom I have to thank for all this.“ He moved his head around, indicating to his cabin. „I don‘t know why, but somehow, I had to think of him and William Shakespeare while we discussed this fantasy book...“

They both fell silent. „Do you often think of him?“ asked William in the end.

„Every single day… Or at least I try to. Often, I can‘t remember his face...I don‘t have a portrait of him. But I do remember his endless chatter and jesting…“ Horatio chuckled.

„It‘s about ten years now...“ 

„Yes...“ Horatio sighed, staring at the book while his eyes clouded over.


	3. Chapter 3

     He had loved Archie; he still did. Horatio had needed years after his friend‘s death to admit this to himself. It hadn‘t been anything indecent or against the Articles... God, the Heavens, who knows who had sent Archie Kennedy to him on his lonely and miserable days on the Justinian. Archie had been so dear to him, and he had never felt so deeply about anyone – not about his parents, or William, or Mariah. Only his feelings for Barbara could match this.

     Horatio clutched the Shakespeare book close to his chest. He remembered how, when he had reached England after the court martial in Jamaica, he had cried for hours over the loss of Archie in the inn‘s room that he had stayed over night, sobbing into the pillow of his rented bed. His heart had been broken, and it still was, even after all these years. Time, fortunately, had done its part of healing, but every now and then the old sadness broke out, so that now Horatio had to shake himself awake again in front of William.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the very short chapter, but I thought that this part of the story and Horatio's character was so important that it had to stand alone.


End file.
